KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) — With the news of Kalamazoo County’s first reported cases of the COVID-19 virus yesterday, Kalamazoo Mayor David Anderson is providing the community with an update.
“Jeff VanderWiere, who works in our Public Safety Department, is running our Emergency Operations Center and is doing a fantastic job,” Anderson said in an interview with WKZO. “We have been expecting that there would be cases in the City of Kalamazoo and Kalamazoo County, it would be naive for us to believe that wasn’t gonna happen.”
Anderson is reminding citizens that essential city services are still being provided, while others have been suspended at this time or have had new measures put in place.
“For the core services in the city, I’m talking about things like water, wastewater, firefighting, public safety, emergency medical response, obviously those things are still going full-force just as they have always happened,” Anderson said. “Rental inspections, building inspections, some of those things are being done remotely, so whatever we can do with the least interaction at the moment as possible, we’re still doing those things too.”
Previously, the Kalamazoo City Commission said that they would not be issuing water shutoffs during this time. All citizens experiencing a shutoff can contact the city via 311 or the City Manager’s office to request water service restored.
Anderson is also speaking out about the business community of Kalamazoo.
“It looks like we are setting up a situation where we’re gonna have an economic disaster rolling our way, so we’re starting to think about that now,” Anderson said. “We most certainly want to deal with issues related to people’s’ health and limiting that spread, but we are doing what we can locally. We’re making plans and reaching out to our State and Federal legislators, saying our local businesses and local workers are going to need assistance.”
Speaking in relation to Governor Whitmer’s “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order, Anderson is advising the Kalamazoo community to stay calm during this time.
“Looking for any silver lining, hopefully the American people will realize this is a global village,” Anderson said, paraphrasing from a Wall Street Journal article that he read recently. “While all politics is local, the reality now is that all politics is international. What happens in Kalamazoo impacts what happens in Beijing. Let’s make sure that good things happen in Kalamazoo.”
The most up-to-date information about the COVID-19 outbreak can be found at https://www.michigan.gov/coronavirus/ and the CDC website.
Information specific to Kalamazoo County can be found online at the County website.
